BOOK REVIEW : "KASHMIR : ITS ABORGINES AND THEIR EXODUS "BY COLONEL TEJ K. TIKOO

                                                                        

BOOK REVIEW

Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus ( Revised Edition )

Author: Colonel Tej K. Tikoo, PhD.

Publisher: Lancer Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi

Pages: 526

 

A Monumental Study of Kashmir's Civilisational Legacy and Historical Tragedy

Colonel Tej K Tikoo's ‘Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus ( Revised Edition )’ is a monumental and meticulously researched work that occupies an important place in contemporary scholarship on Kashmir. At a time when historical narratives concerning Kashmir are frequently shaped by ideological predispositions, political expediency and selective memory, this substantial volume seeks to present a comprehensive historical account of Kashmir and its indigenous inhabitants through the prism of extensive documentation, historical analysis and lived experience. The book is not merely a chronicle of events; it is simultaneously a work of history, political analysis, cultural documentation and collective remembrance. More significantly, it constitutes a serious attempt to preserve the memory of a community whose historical experience has often remained inadequately represented in mainstream discourse.

The first impression that the volume creates is one of extraordinary breadth and ambition. Spanning over five hundred pages, the book traverses an expansive historical landscape extending from geological antiquity and mythological traditions to the contemporary political crisis in Kashmir. Colonel Tikoo demonstrates an impressive command over a wide array of sources, including classical texts, archaeological evidence, historical chronicles, official documents, government reports, journalistic accounts and personal testimonies. The extensive use of documentary material lends considerable authority and credibility to the narrative. The author's scholarship is both deep and wide-ranging, reflecting years of painstaking study and sustained intellectual engagement with the subject.

Colonel Tikoo’s thematic concerns give the work its scholarly weight. First, the very title,' Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus (Revised Edition )’ is a deliberate claim. By opening with Natya Shastra, Sangitaratnakara, and Yoga Vasisht, he situates Pandits not as mediaeval migrants but as bearers of Kashmir’s classical foundations. This reframes the exodus from a 1990s law-and-order problem to a civilisational dislocation. Second, the book is an exercise in historiographical balance. Colonel Tikoo’s stated hope is to “set the record straight”. He does not demand that other narratives be silenced, but that Pandit experience be documented with equal rigour. The extensive use of Persian chronicles and modern Muslim historians demonstrates engagement, not negation. Third, by consulting a disaster-management authority, Tikoo moves the exodus out of pure identity politics and into the comparative study of forced migration. Chapter 18 of this book reads like a policy brief, discussing rehabilitation in terms of safety, livelihood, and dignity. This is a major scholarly contribution. Fourth, the book functions as an archive. It is conceived as “a record for future generations of uprooted Pandits… now spread in far corners of the world”.  A distinctive feature of this work is the manner in which the author organises his narrative into nineteen carefully structured chapters, each addressing a specific historical or political theme while contributing to the larger conceptual framework of the book. Together, these chapters create a coherent and compelling account of Kashmir's civilisational journey.

The opening chapter, Ancient Kashmir: A Brief Historical Sketch, introduces readers to Kashmir's antiquity by synthesising mythology, geology, archaeology and classical historiography. Colonel Tikoo discusses the legend of Satisar, the draining of the primordial lake, the role of Kashyapa, the Naga traditions and the emergence of early civilisation in Kashmir. He proceeds to examine the rise and decline of various dynasties, including the Gonandas, Karkotas, Utpalas and Loharas, while presenting illuminating portraits of rulers such as Ashoka, Lalitaditya Muktapida, Avantivarman and Queen Didda. These pages succeed in restoring before the reader the image of Kashmir as a flourishing centre of learning, spirituality and artistic excellence.

The subsequent chapters dealing with the transition to Islam and the medieval period are equally significant. Colonel Tikoo analyses the decline of indigenous political authority, the establishment of Muslim rule and the profound social and demographic transformations that accompanied these developments. He discusses both accommodation and conflict, thereby situating religious change within broader historical processes. The chapters on the Mughal, Afghan, Sikh and Dogra periods further enrich the narrative by examining successive political regimes and their impact upon Kashmiri society. Rather than reducing history to simplistic binaries, the author endeavours to present a nuanced assessment of each period, highlighting both achievements and limitations.

Equally noteworthy is the chapter devoted to geography, communications and demography. Here the author convincingly demonstrates how Kashmir's unique topography, strategic location and physical isolation shaped its historical destiny. The relationship between geography and politics emerges as a recurring theme throughout the book, and the author's treatment of this subject considerably enhances the reader's understanding of the Valley's historical evolution. The chapter on the Kashmiri Pandits is among the most valuable sections of the book. Colonel Tikoo provides a detailed account of the origins, traditions, social organisation and intellectual contributions of this community. He traces their role in philosophy, literature, administration and scholarship across centuries, thereby underscoring their integral place within Kashmir's civilisational fabric. This chapter assumes particular importance because it restores historical visibility to a community whose contribution to Kashmir's cultural heritage has often been overlooked.

Particularly stimulating is the author's treatment of Kashmiriyat. The concept has frequently been invoked in political and cultural discourse, often without adequate historical scrutiny. Colonel Tikoo subjects the idea to careful analysis, tracing its roots in the Rishi-Sufi tradition associated with figures such as Lal Ded and Nund Rishi, while simultaneously examining its limitations and contradictions. The discussion is thoughtful, analytical and intellectually engaging, inviting readers to reflect critically upon one of the most celebrated yet contested ideas associated with Kashmir.

The political narrative gathers momentum in the chapters dealing with twentieth-century developments. The author's reconstruction of events between 1931 and 1947 is particularly impressive. He carefully analyses the emergence of political movements, communal tensions, constitutional developments and the circumstances that transformed Kashmir into an international dispute. The complexity of these developments is explained with admirable clarity and precision. The author's command over modern political history is evident throughout these chapters. The discussion on Article 370 constitutes another major contribution of the volume. Colonel Tikoo examines the historical origins, constitutional implications and political consequences of this provision in considerable detail. Whether or not readers agree with all his conclusions, there can be little doubt regarding the seriousness of his scholarship and the logical coherence of his arguments. The chapter raises important questions concerning integration, autonomy and federalism, thereby making a significant contribution to contemporary debates on constitutional politics.

The chapters titled An Uneasy Truce, Gathering Storm and Pakistan's Obsession with and Intervention in Kashmir collectively explain the gradual deterioration of the political situation in Kashmir during the latter half of the twentieth century. Colonel Tikoo analyses political instability, administrative shortcomings, separatist mobilisation, external interference and cross-border terrorism with considerable analytical sophistication. The discussion is supported by extensive documentary evidence and demonstrates the author's ability to link contemporary developments with their historical antecedents.

The emotional core of the book lies in the chapters dealing with the targeting, killings and eventual exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits. In Pandits Targeted, Militants Shed Kashmiri Pandit Blood and Exodus, Colonel Tikoo documents, often in painstaking detail, the circumstances that compelled the community to leave the Valley in 1989–90. These chapters derive their power not merely from documentary evidence but also from the author's personal experience as a member of the displaced community. The narrative is deeply moving without descending into rhetorical excess. Instead, facts, testimonies and documentation speak for themselves, creating a profoundly disturbing yet indispensable historical record. The subsequent chapters dealing with myths surrounding the exodus, the aftermath of displacement and questions relating to return and rehabilitation are equally important. Colonel Tikoo critically examines competing narratives and seeks to challenge what he regards as misconceptions concerning the exodus. He discusses refugee life, loss of property, cultural dislocation, psychological trauma and the continuing challenges associated with rehabilitation. These chapters transform the book from a mere historical account into an important work on memory, identity and displacement.

The final chapter, appropriately titled Critical Issues, synthesises the principal concerns raised throughout the volume and reflects upon the future of Kashmir. Questions relating to identity, justice, reconciliation and peaceful coexistence receive sustained attention. In doing so, the author moves beyond historical narration to engage with pressing contemporary concerns.

 From a stylistic perspective, Colonel Tikoo deserves high praise. He writes with clarity, precision and remarkable economy of expression. Complex historical and political issues are presented in language that remains accessible without sacrificing scholarly seriousness. The prose is lucid, disciplined and free from unnecessary ornamentation. The author's military background perhaps explains the methodical organisation and systematic presentation evident throughout the book. Equally commendable is the author's analytical approach. Historical events are not merely narrated; they are interpreted, contextualised and critically examined. The narrative displays considerable conceptual clarity, enabling readers to appreciate the intricate interplay of history, religion, politics and geopolitics in shaping Kashmir's destiny. The logical sequencing of arguments and thematic organisation of chapters further enhance the book's readability and scholarly value.The appendices and documentary material included in the volume significantly augment its academic worth. Lists, statistical data, official documents, chronologies and other supporting material transform the book into an invaluable reference source for future researchers. Historians, political scientists, sociologists and scholars of migration studies will find these materials particularly useful.

 In conclusion, ‘Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus Revised Edition’ succeeds as history, memoir, and policy document. Colonel Tej K. Tikoo brings to bear a soldier’s discipline, a scholar’s apparatus, and an exile’s memory. His style is precise, grave, and humane. His structure is encyclopaedic yet narrative. His central issue, the erasure of a community’s story, is addressed with evidence and restraint. For students of South Asian history, the book is indispensable for its integration of cultural history with conflict analysis. For policymakers, Chapter 18 offers a template for thinking about return that goes beyond slogans. For the Pandit diaspora, it is, as Tikoo hoped, “a record”: a book to hand to children who have never seen the Chinar trees their grandparents left behind. In British academic parlance, this is a significant contribution to the field. It does not close the debate on Kashmir. It ensures the debate is no longer conducted with one voice absent. The author’s narration maintains a commendable objectivity despite the deeply personal stakes, anchoring every contention in primary sources and archival detail rather than sentiment, whilst his conceptual clarity, whether tracing civilisational lineages or framing displacement as a policy crisis, gives the work both intellectual rigour and moral weight. The book expands the evidentiary field of Kashmir studies and contributes meaningfully to ongoing debates on history, memory, and contested political narratives in the region. For its rare blend of evidentiary discipline, humane tone, and analytical coherence, 'Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus (Revised Edition)’ is recommended wholeheartedly to scholars, policymakers, and general readers alike.

 

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
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MY SHORT STORY :" WAITING TO BE TAKEN"

                                          


                                                

Waiting To Be Taken

Old Jonathan  had been fed up with his room. One window onto an air shaft, a radiator that performed its clanging monologue at 3 AM, and silence that refused to answer back. So on Tuesday, trash day on West 82nd (Manhattan ) he became his own discard.

He walked to West End and 82nd and leaned against a credenza with brass handles, like a prop waiting for stage directions. Around him: a chair with a dog’s autobiography chewed into the leg, a Breville that hissed philosophy instead of coffee, a dog in a tuxedo trapped in gilt. 

No sign. Signs were for objects that didn’t know they were in a play. Jonathan knew. 

His premise was simple, and therefore absurd: you put things on the curb, humans arrive, humans assign meaning by taking. Maybe for one day he’d be selected. Maybe for one day the universe would blink. 

It wouldn’t. He knew that too. That was the contract.

By 8:30 AM, a woman with a French bulldog liberated the dog portrait. Jonathan watched the transaction and thought: So this is how value works. Someone points and says ‘this.’The sky, as expected, offered no footnotes.

At 10:15, a man in a beanie used Jonathan’s shoulder as leverage to lift the espresso machine. Jonathan didn’t flinch. I am furniture now, he thought. I am also the audience. The man didn’t thank him. The universe didn’t thank the man. The circuit was open, buzzing with nothing.

Noon: the chair went. The Franzen novels went. A single Le Creuset lid was adopted with more ceremony than Jonathan had received at his wedding. Each object was plucked from meaninglessness by a hand, then carried into another room where it would wait to become meaningless again. 

Jonathan understood. He was Sisyphus, but the boulder was himself. He was Meursault, but the sun was a street lamp. He was on the curb because the alternative was his room, which was the same play with worse lighting.

At 5:10, the DSNY truck arrived. Two men in orange vests fed the credenza to the hopper. Jonathan stepped aside. To be compacted would be too literal. One of the men looked at him. “You alright, pops? Can’t put people out. That’s not a thing.” Jonathan smiled. “I know,” he said. “That’s the thing.” The truck left. The curb was empty. The world was empty. The play went on, because plays do. Jonathan was alone now. Just him and the street lamp on West End Avenue( Manhattan ), humming its sodium note. He looked up at it. It did not look back. Of course it didn’t. So he gave it his monologue.

“You see? You’re on every night. No one chooses you either. You don’t get carried home. You don’t get a new room. You just stand here and throw light at things that leave. And still, you turn on.” 

He paused. The lamp buzzed. The 1 train groaned underground. The city declined to comment.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Jonathan said. “The whole trick. You don’t wait for the taking. You don’t beg the hand. You just be the thing that shows up. Even if no one claps. Even if the only review is the dark.”

He laughed then. A short, private sound. Not bitter. Not happy. Just lucid. He buttoned his wool coat. “I’ll see you Thursday,” he told the lamp. “Recycling. Maybe they take glass. Maybe they don’t. I’ll be here either way.”

He walked back to his room. The radiator would be waiting. The silence would be waiting. He would be waiting.

( Avtar Mota)

PS

Critique of the story

Avtar Mota’s “Waiting To Be Taken ” is a sharp, compact exercise in literary absurdism. The premise : an old man discarding himself on trash day risks twee symbolism, but the execution stays grounded through concrete, Upper West Side detail. The Breville, the Franzen novels, the Le Creuset lid: each object plucked from the curb makes Jonathan ’s invisibility more acute, and more human.

The story’s structure mimics a day’s futility with timestamps that feel like stage directions, reinforcing Jonathan’s sense that he’s both prop and audience. His self-awareness prevents him from becoming pitiable. When he thinks “I am furniture now”and “I am also the audience,” the story pivots from despair to lucid revolt. That’s the Camusian turn made flesh.

The street lamp monologue is the piece’s hinge. By addressing something equally unchosen, Jonathan reframes value: “You just be the thing that shows up.” It’s not hope, but defiance without illusion. The prose is lean, wry, and avoids sentiment. The universe stays indifferent; Jonathan chooses anyway.

At under 600 words, the story doesn’t waste a beat. If anything, the DSNY exchange could be trimmed further to keep the focus on Jonathan’s interior logic. But that’s minor. This is absurdism with a New York accent : precise, unsentimental, and quietly triumphant.

(J. Paul )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

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A SMALL TRIBUTE TO AMAR NATH VAISHNAVI

                                             

AMAR NATH VAISHNAVI ( 1925-2012 )

Amar Nath Vaishnavi Ji was not merely a leader. He was the quiet, aching conscience of a community torn from its soil. A trained artist by discipline, he set aside his canvas for six decades and offered his trembling hands to bind the wounded dignity of Kashmiri Pandits. He never chased the media glare. He never asked for a garland, a stage, or a headline. In 1947, when the Valley burned and fear sat on every doorstep, this young man stood guard over Srinagar’s frightened families without once asking their faith. During the Parmeshwari Handoo  agitation of 1967 , his voice did not crack with rage  it rose, firm and clear, with “Jaikara .....” ; not to inflame, but to gather a shattered people, to give their  sorrow   a direction, and turn their brokenness into disciplined, lawful resolve. He taught them , without ever preaching, that true service does not need a microphone. It needs only a spine that will not bend, and a heart that refuses to calculate the cost.

Then came the long night of 1990. When nearly four lakh people from his community  were made strangers in their own land, when children slept on footpaths and mothers wept into darkness, Vaishnavi Ji, already in his sixties, became their roof, their ration card, their last hope. Along with other leaders, he worked till his body gave way : arranging  tents, pleading for relief, lighting the fires of community kitchens so that no  child would sleep hungry. He never forgot the help and support  he received from the then  Divisional Commissioner Vijay Bakaya, and spoke of it with folded hands, because gratitude was his religion. In the scorching, airless tents of Muthi ,Mishriwala and Purkhoo, he sat on broken chairs hour after hour, listening, listing, fighting for the uprooted exiles on paper so that they would not be erased. When funds dried, he quietly pulled out his own pension. When power was offered, he declined it with a smile and went back to his  room with minimum material comforts. He laid his Dastaar ( headgear )at Balasaheb Thackeray’s feet, not for a ministry, not for a ticket, but so that boys and girls from his exiled community could sit in engineering and medical colleges with their heads held high. He gathered the poorest children for  the Samuhik Yagyopavit , whispering to each one: “Poverty will not steal your Dharma from you.” A real selfless leader ;  he weighed his life only by what he emptied from his hands, never by what he collected.

Men like him are not born anymore. Vaishnavi Ji lived with nothing, and died with nothing, except a ledger of Seva that no government, no auditor, no historian can ever balance. Today, when we watch leaders hire cameras to record their charity, his silence roars in our ears. His absence is not a void ,  it is a wound that refuses to heal. He set the standard of Nishkaam Seva so high that those who claim to lead the community now cannot even see it from where they stand. The exiled, the scattered, are his only monument. Every engineer who studied under that quota, every doctor who crossed through that door he  helped to open, every boy whose father could not afford a  Yagyopavit but who still wears the sacred thread ; they are his breath, his blood, his living proof. 

Vaishnavi Ji  is  gone. But walk into any Pandit home tonight. Listen. His Jaikara still trembles in  walls. It rises in  prayers. It beats, stubborn and unbroken, in every heart that refuses to forget who they  are, and who Vaishnavi  Ji was for them .

( Avtar Mota )

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POETRY OF MAHATMA KRISHEN JOO RAZDAN AND SHIV SUTRAS

                                                

                    ( Mahatma Krishen Joi Razdan by artist Ravi Dhar )

The Bhakti Poetry of Mahatma  Krishen Joo Razdan: A Sprinkling of Shiv Sutras

There is  a sprinkling of core message of the Shiv Sutras in the Kashmiri Bhakti poetry of Mahatma Krishen Joo Razdan of Kashmir. It is not a scholarly borrowing or a forced interpretation. It is a living breath. The same awareness that Vasugupta received on the slopes of Mahadeva mountain in the 9th century flows, centuries later, through the verses of a saint-poet from Vanpoh, Anantnag. 

According to the Shiv Sutras, want of awareness is Maya and deep sleep. The very first sutra, caitanyam atma, declares: “Consciousness is the Self”. To forget this is to fall into Maya. To remember it is liberation. Awareness alone dispels Maya. A real Sadhaka therefore desires nothing but awareness, for it is awareness alone that lifts the veil of illusion and reveals the Self as Shiva. This is not a doctrine for debate. It is a truth to be lived. Mahatma Krishen Joo Razdan, whom many rightly call the Sant Tukaram of Kashmir, understood this. He wove this very truth into his Kashmiri verses with the simplicity and fervour of true devotion. Mahatama  Razdan did not write commentaries. In his verses , the austere, diamond-hard aphorisms of Kashmir Shaivism became tender, tear-filled pleas at the Lord’s feet. 

Born in 1850, Mahatma Razdan was a householder, a “Farzana” saint who lived the four Ashramas yet remained absorbed in the silence of stillness. He is revered as “Sant Mahatma” in the Kashmiri ethos of the Bhakti tradition. His monumental work, ,'Shiv Pranae' or 'Shiva Parinaya', is a Kashmiri Leela-kavya, modelled on the Shiva Mahapuran. But to call it a retelling would be to miss its essence. Mahatma Razdan’s genius was to take the non-dual metaphysics of Trika and clothe it in the intimate language of love. His God is not a distant philosophical absolute. He is the “breath within the devotee, the rhythm of consciousness itself”. This is pure Spanda,  the vibration, the pulsation that the Shiv Sutras place at the heart of reality. For Kashmir Shaivism, the universe is not created out of nothing. It is Shiva’s  Leela . His free, spontaneous, joyful play of consciousness. Mahatma  Razdan’s very choice of the Leela-kavya form is itself a theological statement. He told us that the highest truth is not grim. It is a divine play, and we are invited to participate.

The direct links between Mahatma  Razdan’s poetry and the Shiv Sutras are unmistakable. When the Sutras say caitanyam atama, he sings of a “merger with the Shiva-consciousness” and addresses Shiva as “Guru-Paramatman”. When the Sutras teach the non-dualism of Shiva and Shakti, Razdan declares that “Shiva and Shakti  the masculine and feminine  are one, inseparable, and ever-present”. When the Sutras speak of Pratyabhijna, the recognition of one’s true nature as Shiva, Mahatma Razdan’s entire Sadhana becomes “self-analysis and human perfection” to see the world as the “Pradhanik Rahasya”, the secret of Primal creation. Even the paths align. The Shiv Sutras outline three Upayas: Sambhavopaya of will,  Saktopaya of knowledge, and Aṇavopaya of effort. Mahatma Razdan’s work “displays the deep effect of Puranas, agam shastras, Kashmir Shaivism and Bhakti tradition”, mixing Jnana and Bhakti marg ( knowledge and devotion) into a single path accessible to all. 

This is why his comparison with Sant Tukaram is so apt. Tukaram carried Vithoba of Pandharpur in his Abhangas. He took Vedanta out of the monasteries and into the fields, into the language of farmers and traders. Mahatama Razdan did the same for Kashmir. He carried the non-dual Shiva of Vasugupta in his Kashmiri verses. He proved that the Divine listens to the language of the heart, not of the scholar. His verses are “steeped in non-dual wisdom” yet remain “tender, profound, and steeped in the cadence of prayer”. He opens ,"Shiv Pranae" not with a ritual invocation, but with a heartfelt surrender to Ganesha as the remover of inner obstacles. From there, he paints a vision of divinity that is at once transcendental and intimate. 

Nowhere is the Shiv Sutra spirit clearer than in his famous line: “Hosh dim lagayo Pamposh Paadan”or  "Grant me awareness. This life at your lotus feet, my Lord" . Here, hosh is the same Bodha of the Sutras  that luminous self-awareness which alone is liberation. He does not ask for wealth, or heaven, or powers. He asks for awareness. Because the Sadhaka knows that with awareness, Maya dissolves on its own. With awareness, the lotus feet are not far away. They are here, now, as one’s own being. This is the core of Kashmir Shaivism. This is the cry of Mahatma  Razdan’s Bhakti. The philosophy breathes. It weeps. It surrenders. 

Mahatma Razdan’s “Achhe Posh Gav Lachhi Novuy Hyath”presents the core ideas of the  Shiva Sūtrasthrough a Kashmiri wedding song of Shiva and Uma . The countless flowers  reflect spanda,, the vibration of Shiva’s consciousness becoming the universe. Uma’s marriage to Ishana  portrays the key Trika teaching that Shiva and Śhakti are one ;  their union is not two deities joining, but one reality knowing itself. By describing cosmic truth as a familiar Kashmiri   Vanvun song, Mahatma  Razdan follows , "Yathā tatra tatha anyatra" (ŚS 3.9)  the same reality is found in the home and in the cosmos. The song’s beauty of scent, colour and music becomes Saktopaya,  a way to realise Pratyabhijina, that all is Shiva. Thus the prevailing mood is " Jagadananda"  (ŚS 1.12) , the joy of seeing the world as Shiva’s own wedding celebration.

Mahatma Razdan wrote , "Bhaav pamposh pheil ananad sarasiy shiv shankarasiy chhe posha pooza ." or “Lotuses of rapt Bhaava have erupted in the boundless lake of Ānanda; Shiva, fused with Śakti as Śaṅkara, receives the worship of gods who rain down flowers upon their indivisible union.”

Mahatma Razdan’s line resonates with Trika intensity: the “Pamposh” are not passive blooms but  Spanda,  the explosive pulsation of Vimarsha-Shakti, tearing through the heart-lotus, shattering  Maala as "Udyamo Bhairavaḥ" (SS 1.5), the sudden upsurge of the Absolute. The “Anand-sar” is no tranquil pool but the fathomless ocean of "Cit-ananda wherein "Jagadānanda" (ŚS 1.12) erupts  the cosmos revealed as Shiva’s orgiastic bliss-play. “Shiv Shankara-siy chhe posha pooza” enacts "Shakti-chakra-sandhāne viśva-saṁhāraḥ ( SS 3.31) with ferocious immediacy: Shiva-Śakti  Smarasya annihilates subject-object duality, whilst the "Posha-pooza" is anugraha unleashed ; grace as a violent downpour of flowers that obliterates finitude. Here "Chaitanyam Atma ( SS 1.1) stands unveiled: worship, worshipper, and worshipped collapse into the single, self-luminous fire of  Pratyabhijñā, rendering Mahatma  Razdan’s verse a mantra of awakening rather than mere devotion.

So the lineage is clear. From Lord Shiva to sage Vasugupta in the 9th century, to the Shiv Sutras, to the great commentators Kshemaraja and Abhinavagupta, to the living Trika tradition, and finally to Mahatma Krishen Joo Razdan in the 19th century. His "Shiv Pranae" and Leela poetry are the Shiv Sutras sung as Bhakti. They teach the same truth: the individual self is Shiva, the universe is His playful expression  or Leela /Spanda, and liberation is Pratyabhijñā or  recognising this truth, not by ritual but by awareness. Razdan wanted to “seek the very existence of Shiva” for “self-analysis and human perfection”. The Sutras guide us to “set aside the illusion and experience ultimate reality”. The goal is one. The language is different. One is in Sanskrit aphorisms for ascetics. The other is in Kashmiri song for every home. 

To read Mahatma Razdan is to see how a tradition stays alive. It does not survive by being locked in books. It survives by being sung in households . The Shiv Sutras were revealed near Harwan, by Mahadeva mountain, whether inscribed on the Sankaropala rock or whispered to Vasugupta in a dream. A thousand years later, they were still being revealed  this time in the heat and dust of the plains of the country where the exiled natives live at present .The mystic from Vanpoh  asked for nothing but Hosh_at the Lord’s Pamposh Paada or Lotus feet . That is the sprinkling. That is the continuity. That is the grace of Kashmir Shaivism: it never stopped speaking. It only changed its tongue, so that the heart could understand.

( Avtar Mota)

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

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HONEYCRISP APPLE OF THE US IS LIKE AMBRI APPLE OF KASHMIR

                                             

HONEYCRISP APPLE OF THE US IS LIKE AMBRI APPLE OF KASHMIR 

The Honeycrisp apple, developed by the University of Minnesota and released in 1991, has become one of the most recognisable and sought after varieties in the United States. It began as seedling MN1711, the result of a 1960 cross between Macoun and Honeygold. The aim was to create an apple that could survive the harsh winters of Minnesota while still delivering excellent eating quality. What emerged was something far more influential. Honeycrisp cells are unusually large with thin walls that fracture rather than collapse when bitten. This structure produces the variety’s signature trait: an explosive, shattering crunch followed by a rush of juice. The sensation is so distinct that it changed consumer expectations across the US market and forced growers to reconsider what qualities matter most in a modern apple.

In terms of flavour, Honeycrisp is predominantly sweet with a gentle, balancing acidity. Sugar levels typically measure between 13 and 15 degrees Brix, while the malic acid content is relatively low compared with tart varieties such as Granny Smith. The result is a clean, honeyed taste with hints of pear and melon, and none of the cloying sweetness that some shoppers dislike. The fruit itself is large and handsome, with a yellow green base skin covered by a mottled red blush over 60 to 90 percent of the surface. The skin is thin, so it does not interfere with eating, yet it provides good colour appeal on the shelf. 

Americans primarily eat Honeycrisp fresh because the texture holds and the flesh is slow to oxidise. Slices remain pale for hours, making them popular for lunchboxes, salads, and cheese boards. The juice pairs well with sharp cheddar and blue cheese. For cooking, Honeycrisp softens quickly and releases considerable liquid, so bakers often mix it with firmer varieties to maintain structure in pies. It makes a smooth, naturally sweet sauce and a floral base for cider, though cider makers usually blend it with higher tannin apples for complexity. 

Commercially, Honeycrisp commands a premium price, often two to three times that of older varieties like Red Delicious. Its success has shifted orchard plantings nationwide and spurred a wave of new cultivars, including SweeTango and Cosmic Crisp, that aim to capture the same texture. While it is not the sweetest or the easiest apple to grow, Honeycrisp is the variety many Americans now cite when describing their ideal eating apple, and it is frequently compared to heritage apples abroad for its ability to deliver a memorable bite.

The turning point came from consumers. I was advised in New York to try Honeycrisp when I asked fruit sellers why there is no sweet apple like Ambri of Kashmir. I had moved from J&K ( India)  and missed that distinctive Ambri crunch, the way the sweetness of its juice fills your mouth and the fragrance fills a room. The seller at a Union Square stall just smiled and handed me a Honeycrisp. “This is what you want,” he said. One bite explained why the economics flipped. People were willing to pay three to four dollars per pound when Gala was selling for 99 cents. Suddenly the bruising and the bitter pit were problems worth solving. Researchers developed better calcium sprays. Growers learned to crop lightly and pick in multiple passes. By 2006, Washington State, the largest apple region in the US, had planted more than two million Honeycrisp trees. 

Today Honeycrisp is the fifth most grown apple in the US by volume, but first by value. Harvest begins in mid September in Minnesota and runs into October in Washington. Because the fruit stores so well, it is available nearly year round. Controlled atmosphere storage, with oxygen levels dropped to one or two percent and temperatures held just above freezing, keeps the texture intact for six to seven months. That is unusual for a thin skinned apple. Most crisp varieties soften after ninety days. Honeycrisp holds. The reason goes back to cell structure. University researchers found that Honeycrisp cells are up to twice the size of those in Red Delicious, and the cell walls are thinner. When you bite, the cells fracture and release juice instead of collapsing into a mealy paste. The sensation is closer to a ripe Asian pear than to a traditional apple. 

Flavour, Texture, and How Americans Use It

 

On paper, Honeycrisp is not the sweetest apple. Laboratory tests usually place it at 13 to 15 degrees Brix, which measures soluble solids, mostly sugar. What makes Honeycrisp taste sweeter is the low acid. Malic acid levels are roughly half of those in a Granny Smith and about twenty percent lower than a Pink Lady. The result is a clean, honeyed sweetness with only a whisper of tartness at the finish. The aroma is mild, with notes of pear and melon rather than the classic apple perfume you get from McIntosh. 

The skin is thin enough that you do not notice it when eating, but it provides a bright visual cue. The base colour is yellow green, overlaid with a mottled red blush that covers 60 to 90 percent of the surface. In cool autumn nights, that red deepens. The fruit is large, often weighing 250 to 350 grams, and the shape is slightly oblate, wider than it is tall. 

Americans eat Honeycrisp fresh. It dominates the “snacking apple” category and is the most common variety in pre sliced apple packs sold at schools and airports. The flesh oxidises slowly, so cut slices stay white for several hours without lemon juice. That makes it ideal for salads, slaws, and cheese boards. Chefs pair it with sharp cheddar, blue cheese, and aged gouda because the juice cuts through fat without fighting the flavour. 

For cooking, Honeycrisp is serviceable but not ideal. It breaks down faster than Granny Smith or Bramley and releases a lot of liquid. If you bake a pie with only Honeycrisp, the filling can become soupy. Most bakers use it in a mix, adding a firmer variety for structure. Sauce made from Honeycrisp is smooth and naturally sweet, requiring less added sugar. Cider makers like it as a base because it ferments to a clean, floral note, though they usually blend in higher tannin apples for complexity. 

Nutrition is standard for apples. A medium Honeycrisp delivers about 95 calories, 25 grams of carbohydrate, and 4 grams of fibre. The appeal is not health claims. It is sensory. The crunch is loud. The juice is abundant. People describe it as refreshing rather than filling, which is why you see shoppers eat one while walking out of the store. 

The Ambri of Kashmir Parallel: Why the Comparison Holds

Ambri is the legendary apple of the Kashmir Valley. It is a seedling variety, likely centuries old, selected by local orchardists for its unique quality rather than its yield. The name itself is used across the valley to denote the best. Ambri ripens late, usually in October, and keeps well in traditional cold stores. The skin is deep red with a waxy sheen, and the flesh is crisp, aromatic, and honey sweet with a balancing acidity. Lesser production  kept it from becoming a global commodity. Yet within Kashmir, and among the Kashmiri  diaspora, it is the standard against which other apples are judged. 

Honeycrisp occupies the same cultural space in the US. It is not the oldest variety. It is not the easiest to grow. It is not even the highest in sugar. But it reset expectations. Before Honeycrisp, the US market was dominated by Red Delicious, a variety chosen for colour and shelf life rather than eating quality. Red Delicious is often mealy and bland. When Honeycrisp arrived, consumers realised an apple could be both crisp and juicy. 

The parallels run deeper than market impact. Both apples are defined by texture first. Ambri’s cells are dense and slow to break down, giving a long, satisfying chew. Honeycrisp’s cells shatter, giving a quick burst. Different mechanics, same result: a memorable bite. Both have thin skin that avoids the waxy, thick peel people dislike. Both are aromatic, though Ambri is more floral and Honeycrisp is more melon like. Both are late season and store well, which historically made them valuable for winter eating. 

There are differences, of course. Ambri is a product of farmer selection over generations. Honeycrisp is the product of a formal breeding programme with lab notebooks and patent protection. Ambri is tied to a specific terroir, the Karewas of Kashmir with their unique soil and climate. Honeycrisp is now grown from New York to New Zealand and tastes remarkably consistent across regions, which speaks to strong genetics rather than place. 

Still, the emotional role is identical. When someone from Kashmir bites into a Honeycrisp in New York, the reaction is often immediate: “This is like Ambri to some extent  .” The sweetness is not cloying. The juice is not watery. The crunch is not hard. It hits that middle ground that makes an apple more than food. It becomes a memory. That is why fruit sellers in New York point to Honeycrisp when a customer asks for something like Ambri. They are not saying the two are clones. They are saying Honeycrisp is the US apple that carries the same weight. It is the one people ask for by name, the one they drive across town to buy, the one they give to guests to show what a good apple can be. 

In that sense, Honeycrisp is the Ambri of Kashmir for the United States. One is heritage, one is modern. Both are benchmarks. So next time in  the US ,try Honeycrisp.

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.

FIRAQ GORAKHPURI AND CHARLES BAUDELAIRE : TWO SIDES OF THE SAME THOUGHT

                      ( Charles  Baudelaire )
                                             

                              ( Firaq Gorakhpuri)                                             

    (Avtar Mota inside Cimetiere du Montparnasse,Paris)

        ( A School  at Firaq's House in Gorakhpur)

( Tomb of Baudelaire in Cimetiere du Montparnasse)

Firaq Gorakhpuri  And Charles Baudelaire: Two Sides of the Same Thought 

Firaq Gorakhpuri and Charles Baudelaire are comparable as modernist poets who transfigured the lyric into a site of urban estrangement, moral ambiguity, and metaphysical longing, even as they remained anchored in inherited prosodic traditions. Both poets inherited highly formalised classical modes :  Baudelaire the French sonnet and alexandrine, Firaq the Persianate  Ghazal and Rubai,  which they then ruptured from within, infusing them with a sensuous, often profane, modern subjectivity. Where Baudelaire anatomised the Parisian  flaneur adrift amidst gaslight, crowds, and ennui, Firaq rendered the Ashiq as a solitary consciousness moving through the deracinated post-feudal landscape of North India, his couplets suffused with existential doubt and erotic disquiet. Crucially, each poet enacted a dialectic between beauty and decay: Baudelaire’s  'fleurs du mal ' find their counterpart in Firaq’s rose that withers even as it blooms, both using exquisite formal control to contain experiences of spleen, intoxication, and temporal loss. Though divided by language, century, and theological inheritance, they converge as comparatist figures of a global modernity, poets who made the lyric a secular prayer for a world in which the old gods had already grown silent.

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) stands as the hinge on which French poetry turned toward modernity. With ,'Les Fleurs du mal', he tore literature away from pastoral dreams and romantic consolation, forcing it to confront the gas-lit streets of Paris, the ennui of the crowd, erotic obsession, and the smell of death. He created the ,' flaneur' ; the solitary, observant artist moving through the city  and argued that beauty in the modern world is transient, artificial, and inseparable from melancholy. Baudelaire kept classical form but filled it with nerves, guilt, and self-division. He refused to moralise. For him the poet’s duty was not to preach or comfort, but to record the contradictions of a consciousness that could no longer rely on God or tradition. In that refusal he became Europe’s first truly modern poet.

A century later, Firaq Gorakhpuri (1896–1982) performed an identical rupture for Urdu. Where the classical Ghazal had traded in Persianised abstractions , the nightingale, the wine-bearer, the eternally cruel beloved ,  Firaq wrote of insomnia, ageing skin, the monsoon on a tin roof, and desire that does not apologise for being physical. Trained in English literature and steeped in Ganga-Jamuni culture, he brought psychological realism into a form that had become ornamental. His line ;  “zindagi ka koyi ilaaj nahin”,' life has no cure ' could sit comfortably beside Baudelaire’s spleen. Both men understood that once metaphysical certainties collapse, the self becomes the only subject left, and that subject is contradictory, desiring, and mortal.

The parallel is not biographical but structural. Baudelaire found beauty in decay, in the charogne by the roadside, because decay told the truth about time. Firaq finds lyricism in withering gardens and evening light because “aane wali hai maut, yeh bhi ek shaam hai”, 'death too is just another evening' . Both fuse sensuous detail with a cold intellect. Baudelaire’s sonnets discipline his fever; Firaq’s Rubaiyat and Ghazals are musically exact even when they speak of chaos. Neither offers consolation. God for Baudelaire is largely absent, returning only as damnation. For Firaq He is a question, or diffused into nature. Meaning must be made from experience, not revealed from above.

They diverge in temperament. Baudelaire’s Catholic imagination circles sin, blasphemy, and the abyss; he shocks to awaken. Firaq, shaped by secular modernism and Indic thought, is agnostic, pantheistic, and persuasive rather than provocative. Baudelaire is the poet of the city and the damned; Firaq is the poet of solitude, seasons, and the incurable. Yet these are two accents of the same language. Both took a revered tradition, broke its decorum, and rebuilt it around the modern self. Baudelaire gave French verse its nerves. Firaq gave the Urdu ghazal its conscience. 

I visited Baudelaire’s tomb in Cimetiere du Montparnasse as a pale Parisian light filtered through the chestnut trees, and found many tourists offering flowers. One does not come to such a place to mourn but  to acknowledge a contribution  and a lineage. He made it possible to write truthfully about the ruin and rapture of being modern, and standing before that slab, I felt less the weight of a debt  to the poet who first showed that beauty could be terrible, and that honesty could be art. While Baudelaire has been kept alive by a thankful France ;  studied in every lycee, quoted in the Metro, his grave is now honoured for  the birth of the modern  French poetry . However,  we Indians have been ungrateful to the memory of Firaq . We remember the poet, if at all, in fragments, and forget the man in full: the freedom fighter who was selected for the Indian Civil Service (British India) (I.C.S.), but  resigned to follow Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement for which he was jailed for 18 months .He was a  humanist who refused to let language be colonised by dogma. He   fought myopic ideology wherever it appeared, whether dressed as orthodoxy or as partisan zeal. Firaq gave the Urdu Ghazal its modern conscience and gave public life his uncompromising honesty, but  we have allowed that legacy to dim into footnotes and commemorative stamps.  Laxmi Niwas, the two-storey house in Gorakhpur’s Turkmanpur where Firaq Gorakhpuri grew up and wrote his immortal works, is today a private  school . The building that once hosted Nehru, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, and generations of poets and freedom fighters now hears school bells . Baudelaire’s France guards the troubler of its peace; Firaq’s India too often mislays the custodian of its conscience.

Firaq Gorakhpuri and Charles Baudelaire stand as the pre-eminent poets of modern consciousness, for they were the first to articulate the psychic condition of man after the dissolution of metaphysical order. Writing from the ruins of inherited belief : Baudelaire amidst the desacralised boulevards of Second Empire Paris, Firaq amid the collapse of Mughal-Urdu  Tehzeeb and the trauma of Partition , each reoriented poetry towards the interior, making the unmediated self its principal subject. In their work, feeling ceases to be ritualised or transcendental and becomes symptomatic: Baudelaire’s 'Spleen ' and Firaq’s 'Tanhai' ,  diagnose the ennui, erotic compulsion, and temporal dread of the secular subject, alone with his mortality. Yet their distinction lies not in despair, but in form: Baudelaire compels the French lyric to accommodate urban alienation; Firaq compels the Ghazal to bear existential weight, and neither structure fails. Thus they do not merely reflect modernity , they constitute it, furnishing a prosody for desolation and proving that, even after the death of the gods, the human abyss can still be rendered into music.

Firaq bound Gorakhpur to his very name ,  a son’s unsevered umbilical cord to the soil that birthed him  and he clutched it till his dying breath. Yet the motherland, for whom he had worn her name as both ornament and epitaph, met his genius with the cold, incurious stare of a stranger. When he lay dying in a Delhi flat, threadbare and all but forsaken, the city did not so much as turn its head. The man who gave Gorakhpur a place upon the map of world literature was granted, in exchange, only oblivion. He kept faith with his land; the land broke faith with him.

Firaq  and Baudelaire are two faces of the same truth: when the old gods  fall silent , the poet must bear witness to the human mind laid bare : desiring, grieving, ageing, utterly alone, yet still able to turn desolation into music. Baudelaire walked a Paris where altar and throne had fallen; for Firaq , no  heaven left to appeal to, only man, exposed. So they chronicled the naked mind . Ageing flesh, curdled desire, unanswerable grief , they refused consolation. The poet became the last sentinel: Baudelaire’s albatross mocked on deck, Firaq exiled from Laxmi Niwas, his house now a school. Different tongues, same abyss. Same defiant music raised by both .

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.

NIETZSCHE'S PHILOSOPHY AND FIRAQ GORAKHPURI

                                          

NIETZSCHE'S  PHILOSOPHY AND  FIRAQ GORAKHPURI

"Maut ka bhi ilaaj ho shaayad

Zindagi ka koyi ilaaj nahin."..Firaq Gorakhpuri 

(Perhaps there may be a cure even for death,  

There is no cure for life.) 

Firaq Gorakhpuri’s line, “Maut ka bhi ilaaj ho shaayad, Zindagi ka koyi ilaaj nahin”, expresses an idea that fits closely with Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially his ideas of "amor fati", loving one’s fate, and eternal recurrence, the thought of living the same life again and again. By saying death might be cured but life cannot, Firaq points to the same problem Nietzsche saw after the “death of God”: once old religious answers disappear, we are left with life as a condition that has no outside fix or escape. In Nietzsche’s terms, this is the messy, painful, but real side of existence that cannot be tidied up or solved with rules. Firaq’s mood is sorrowful, accepting that life has no remedy. Nietzsche would agree with that truth but push it further, arguing that because life cannot be cured, we must say “yes” to it anyway and give it meaning ourselves, even if we had to live it over forever. So through Nietzsche, Firaq’s couplet is not simply despair, but a clear starting point: once we see life has no cure, the real work of creating values and strength begins.

( Avtar Mota )

PS

(1) Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib, and Firaq Gorakhpuri are the three towering figures of Urdu poetry because each defined a different age of the ghazal. Mir, known as Khuda-e-Sukhan, gave Urdu its classical soul in the 18th century through verses of unmatched emotional purity, capturing grief and longing with austere beauty. Ghalib reshaped the form in the 19th century, bringing philosophical depth, irony, and metaphysical questioning that turned personal pain into universal thought. Firaq carried the tradition into the 20th century, blending Ghalib’s intellectual complexity with Mir’s lyricism while adding a modern humanism that addressed love, nature, and the existential burden of life itself. Together they represent Urdu poetry’s complete arc , heart, mind, and modern voice ; which is why all three stand at the apex of the canon.

(2) In Nietzsche’s phrase “ Death of God or God is dead,” he meant that the  Christian worldview which once gave Europe its morality and purpose had in his opinion  collapsed under modern science and reason. This left a void of meaning, leading to nihilism, but also the challenge for humans to create their own values and affirm life without relying on divine authority.

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.